Chapter 3

Industrial Relations
in a Comparative
Framework

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 Objectives

 To understand why and how study of industrial relations in

a comparative framework helps
 To examine the link, if any, between the various strategies
of industrialization and the industrial relations policies
 To analyse the impact of globalization on industrial
relations and the related emerging issues

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 Comparative Study of Industrial
Relations
 Involves study of all social, economic, legal, and institutional
aspects and the attitudes and approaches of the government,
unions, and management.
 It helps in understanding the relative significance of different
strategies/approaches on industrial relations.
 It should focus on the key aspects relating to economy, law, and
institutions with particular reference to trade unionism and trade
union structures, collective bargaining, participative
management, and incidence of industrial conflict with casual
analysis.

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 Industrialization Strategy and
Industrial Relations
 The Logic of Industrial Peace: Aimed at curbing internal and
external competition through licensing regulations and protectionist
tariffs
 The Logic of Competition: Aimed at promoting enterprise
efficiency, elimination or marginalization of trade unions, and using
selective immigration as a means of ensuring an adequate and
flexible supply of labour
 The Logic of Employment-income Protection: Aimed at
providing skills training, and extending unemployment pay and old
age benefits and pensions

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 Globalization and Industrial
Relations
Globalization is the economic integration across the globe in
terms of free movement of capital, technology, products, and
people.

Merits
 Sustained economic growth
 Free markets, with little or no intervention from govt.
 Economic globalization
 Privatization
 The primary responsibility of the government is to provide the
infrastructure necessary to advance commerce
Contd.

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Contd.
Demerits
 The process of globalization seems to be driven by a few in a
unipolar world
 Is another form of imperialism
 Is leading to growing inequalities between the rich and the
poor
 Is destroying jobs and local communities
 Is ruthless, rootless, jobless, fruitless

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 Gateways to Globalization
 The shrinkage of time and space with the advent of information
and communication technologies
 Rapid integration of financial markets and freer movement of
capital
 The blurring of national state and national boundaries and the
evolution of WTO
 Global production chains and integrated supply chains
 The new flexible production systems and new forms of industrial
organization
 Flight of capital and industry
 Shift of labour intensive manufacturing to low cost sites
 Global networking facilitating inter- and intra-company trade in
transnational companies

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 Disinvestment
It affects industrial relations in the following ways:
 Changes ownership, which may bring out changes in work
organization, employment, trade union organizations, and
trade union dynamics
 Changes the work organization by necessitating retraining
and redeployment
 Affects the rights of workers and trade unions

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 Deregulation
 Deregulation results in erosion of the accrued interests of
workers and trade unions.
 It results in a reduction in pension benefits and an
uncertainty concerning future provisions of pension
benefits, due to:
o the absence of government guarantees,
o falling interest rates, and
o Investment of pension funds in stock markets

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 Decentralization

 Decentralization of industrial relations is seen in terms of

the shift in consideration of industrial relations issues from
macro to micro and from industry to enterprise level.
 It results in the weakened bargaining power of unions.

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New Actors and the New Dynamics
in Industrial Relations
 Consumers and the community have started playing a
significant role in industrial relations
 Pro-labour-Pro-investor Policies
 Changed mindsets of the judiciary, legislature, and
executive
 Declining trade union density
 Worker militancy replaced by employer militancy
 Collective bargaining

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